As the title says, these are just idle musings on a specific issue in the movie. I’m really interested in any and all feedback I might get.
Also, there will be spoilers. Big ones, too.
So, the narrative builds up Kylo Ren’s decisive moment – his final step into the Dark Side – to be when he kills Han Solo, his own father. Fair enough; a child killing one of their own parents is a classic in fiction. But at the beginning of the movie, after Kylo Ren has captured Poe Dameron and is taking him prisoner aboard his ship, Captain Phasma asks him what to do about the villagers, and he just tells her to slaughter them all. And I’m wondering: why isn’t THIS the moment everyone – the characters, the audience, the narrative itself – considers to be Ren’s irrevocable turn to evil?
Of course, I understand the emotional reaction in considering the killing of one’s own father to be more monstrous than executing a whole village. So, from an emotional point of view, killing a parent is definitely worse; but is it also worse from a moral point of view? If human lives have an intrinsic value, does the life of a parent amount to more than the lives of a number of strangers? It’s not for nothing the Greeks actually had a deity (or rather, three of them that acted as one) – the Erinyes – just to punish those who spilled the blood of their own kin, but they (and other cultures with similar myths) were essentially tribalistic: the lives of foreigners had no intrinsic value, and the lives of relatives were much more valuable than those of anyone else in the community (with the possible exception, in some cultures, of the life of their lord, for warriors).
It’s understandable that Ren himself would consider his killing Han Solo to be the culmination of his journey to the Dark Side exactly because of his lingering emotional attachment to his father. But isn’t coldly executing several defenseless people – and needlessly as well, which only makes it worse, since his action’s can’t even be excused as “pragmatical” – much more sociopathic, since it shows his utter disregard for the lives of others? His inability to feel empathy for others? I mean, what if he didn’t actually kill Solo, what then? Would he somehow atone for the deaths of the people in Jakku (plus whoever else he killed throughout the years), or would those deaths simply be brushed aside?
Of course, the simplest explanation for the whole thing is that Han Solo has dramatic importance, which the people at Jakku didn’t. But that’s actually what got me thinking in the first place: should we, in this global, post-modern age, still write stories where only the people with names are important without challenging them? Especially when Finn’s character arc (which starts with him not wanting to slaughter innocents) encourages us to think about those things?
On the other hand, I’m not sure how to rewrite the plot in such a way as to not downplay neither the slaughter of the Jakku villagers, nor the death of Han Solo, especially since the massacre is important for Finn’s character arc. Maybe Phasma or General Hux could be responsible for the slaughter itself, while Ren “only” killed Max von Sydow’s character and captured Poe? But even then, he would still be complicit with the killings.
Huh. I think I just came up with what I feel is a good idea: I’m going to contradict myself, but DON’T have the massacre! Have Phasma ask him what to do with the villagers, then have him hesitate, glance over to Von Sydow’s corpse, and say something like “Leave them be, they don’t matter”. That way, when Ren talks about feeling the pull of the Light Side, it would be much more believable to the audience, and when he DOES take the plunge and kill Han Solo, it would be much more dramatic.
“But what about Finn’s arc?”, someone might ask. Well, in the movie, Finn’s arc starts with him not killing the people at Jakku, but then he’s pretty self-serving throughout the rest of the movie: he just wants to escape the New Order at first, then, later, he just wants to protect his friends (I think he would also have attempted to rescue Poe if he had been captured instead of Rey, for instance). Even as he’s helping Han and Chewie infiltrate the Starkiller Base, he’s only there because he wants to rescue Rey. So, remove the massacre of innocent people at Jakku, but keep his reactions to the battle itself (though preferably with more focus on the combatants of both sides being killed in action); and later, when he’s telling Rey he didn’t want to kill for the New Order, change the line to how he didn’t want to FIGHT for the New Order so he doesn’t sound like a hypocrite. That should keep his characterisation pretty much as it is in the movie itself: basically, a young Han Solo who is less of a scoundrel and more like just someone who wants to live. Though maybe we could increase his heroism level a bit, much like Han’s big “Changed my mind, kid” moment at the end of A New Hope: at the Starkiller Base, when Solo tells him there are people counting on them, instead of him naively (and rather glibly, in my opinion) declaring “They’ll use the Force”, have him actually look ashamed and agree that they should stop the New Order from killing more people before rescuing Rey.
Or maybe I am overthinking things? I’m a bit torn on the issue, to be honest.
Maybe you could have Kylo deciding to let the villagers go before having Phasma convince him to kill them? That would still get across a possibility of redemption while still making him come across as a legitimate threat.
Although it’s pretty essential to the plot that he killed all of the other Jedi apprentices, which most likely included young children, so I think he was pretty well gone before the movie started.
Hm, I’m not sure “agreeing to kill innocents, even if you have to be convinced to do it” is morally that much different from “ordering innocents killed”.
Good point on the killing of the apprentices, though. But the issue isn’t really whether he can be redeemed or not, I think; I personally believe even deliberately evil people (as opposed to just ignorant or self-serving people) can be redeemed, and I don’t mind a story about that (that said, I also believe actual redemption is hard and takes a lot of work, not something which can be achieved with a single act).
I read Kylo Ren as fundamentaly pathetic character. I mean, he dress up as Darth Vader for no reason (a jab at ‘evil is cool’, no doubt), he has to fight the pull of the Light, he clearly has the mother of all inferiority complexes… to me him murdering his father to prove to himself how evil he is is less about showing he is irredeemable and more about showing how much he is a loser deep down.
Also, his lightsaber looks stupid.
While on the subject of Star Wars:
Anyone else felt the supreme bad guy was kind of lackluster?
Why would they be the First Order, instead of just the Order? Is there a Second Order somewhere? Shouldn’t the current bad guy organisation be the SECOND order, as opposed to the Jedi Order?
I thought
BrienneGwendoline Christie was underused, I hope we see more of her later.While I appreciate the movie giving Rey all the cool stuff (the lightsaber, the ship and the sidekick), I felt it was treating Chewbacca as an accessory, as opposed to his own person (shouldn’t HE be the owner of the Falcon, now?).
Is Finn supposed to be dead? During the movie I was like, wait, did they kill off the black guy? But then it seemed like he was merely hurt but at the end the way his body was exposed made it look like a corpse, and now I am confused.
Luke, you whiny fuck up.
I hope, against all evidence, that Rey is nobody’s daughter in particular. Down with the super-powered aristocracy!
3d is a stupid fucking gimmick, and everyone knows it.
Still, I liked the movie.
Unrelated, beside being stuff I like, but has anybody seen the Jessica Jones series? It’s like the Dresden Files, except it’s about a woman, it’s superpowers instead of fantasy, and it’s not stupid. And a it explicitly says sleeping with mind-controled people is rape (low standard, I know, but in a world where Wither and Bob the Skull exist, I’ll take what I can get).
Now I’m mildly curious as to what Wither and Bob the Skull are
Wither is a book reviewed on this very blog. It’s notable for being about a rich guy keeping kidnapped girls locked up in his house and “sleeping” with them, yet not containing a single occurrence of the word rape.
Bob the Skull is a character in the Dresden Files (also on this blog). He uses magic to make college students have orgies. The book treats it like an amusing quirk.
That sounds really fucking horrifying
It’s kind of amazing the things you can get away with in fiction if you frame it right.
Also, one of the wives in Wither is only 13, while her husband is 20.
There’s one instance of the word “rape”, it’s used metaphorically to add negative affect to the act of using a woman’s corpse for medical research! :D
I really liked the characterization in Jessica Jones. The plot got a little less good about half-way through, but I really appreciated that Jessica gets to be this blunt, kick the door down PI and this is never presented as her being Badass TM, it’s just who she is. And I like that her friendship with Trish is so central to the story. And even the secondary character who is always calling Jessica a bitch and causes countless problems gets treated sympathetically.
Oh, he definitely is a pathetic character, and that’s deliberate; you can see that even in the way the movie frames his losing control as temper tantrums, as opposed to Vader’s cold execution of the officers that failed him.
That was my absolute favorite thing.
Everybody else seemed like basically normal people despite their backgrounds – Finn didn’t act like someone raised in an isolated cult or treat stormtroopers any differently than the rest of the cast, Rey seemed to have no issues from growing up in almost complete isolation in a miserable desert, but Ren is acting exactly the way you’d reasonably expect a dumb baby whose ideology means he’s never supposed to take deep breaths and count to ten to behave.
I found these days an interesting reading on Kylo Ren’s character by one of the writers at The Mary Sue. Basically, they felt he was a metaphor for the inherent issues with toxic masculinity – how much of his inner conflict comes from him trying to be “more of a man”.
Here’s the article, if you’re interested:
http://www.themarysue.com/masculinity-the-force-awakens/
Huh. We read this part pretty differently.
I don’t think Ren killing Han was supposed to signify his irrevocable turn to the Dark Side because it was a uniquely evil act for him, just because of its personal significance to him. Ren felt conflicted because of his lingering attachment to his father; therefore, by killing his father he would stamp out that internal conflict once and for all. (Well, in theory, anyway. No one said Ren was the most rational guy in the galaxy.) It’s a crucial moment to his personal character arc, not necessarily to his actual moral compass. Like Socordya said, Ren is a fundamentally pathetic character–the moody estranged child whose form of rebellion against his parents and search for a different role model is to oppress and kill people in service of a fascist regime. Obviously, ruthlessly slaughtering civilians (not to mention young Jedi in training) is already an act of inexcusable evil as far as any reasonable person is concerned. But Ren is so thoroughly self-absorbed that all he’s concerned about is the ~shameful pull back to the Light~ he feels by having any lingering attachment to his family, and so that’s what he considers most important to his allegiance to the Dark Side. Which is pretty damn sociopathic, yes!
And yeah, it’s absolutely true that killing Han has much more impact on the audience than killing nameless civilians, and that that’s what most viewers will remember first as the worst thing Ren did (to them, at least, even if not in-universe). Which still might be something of an issue–like you said, it’s pretty messed up for people’s judgment of this character to hinge on the murder of a single person when he’s done much worse than that! I’m not involved in Star Wars fandom, but I’ve still seen multiple debates spring up on the issue of Ren’s potential redemption on websites I browse, and they tend to go along the lines of “he killed Han, they can’t redeem him after that” “uh I know we all love Han but I think the murdering children and innocent civilians part is more important here” “right, because as we all know Anakin was never redeemed”, and so forth. So you’re definitely not the only one who has an issue with that, in any case?
I dunno, I think the whole bit with Leia wanting Han to bring him back was supposed to show that yes, he was redeemable until this moment. Especially given how stormtroopers are still mowed down like wheat despite one of the main characters existing to show they’re actually victims, I do think the narrative intends us to overlook the opening massacre.
Yeah, I’ll definitely give you that the writers weren’t bothered by casually killing off their faceless masses; I’m still linefacing at the treatment of all the other storm troopers myself. So maybe they really were just being that careless about implications of Ren’s arc, yeah.
I don’t think I’d point to Leia and Han as an indicator of whether his actions are meant to be excusable, though. They’re his parents–it’s not unreasonable to think they still want to do anything they can to help their child, even knowing he has done horrible things he can never make up for. Leia and Han still wanting to save him doesn’t say “I don’t think he’s gone far enough to be a truly bad person”, it says “that is my child who has gone down this path and if there is anything I can do that might get him off it, I will”. I mean, they specifically show Han gently touching Ren’s face in the moments after he stabs him, before he dies, but I don’t think that’s supposed to be an indication that he hasn’t gone too far either?
Yeah, I’ll definitely give you that the writers weren’t bothered by casually killing off their faceless masses; I’m still linefacing at the treatment of all the other storm troopers myself.
Indeed! I can understand the Resistance just fighting against the First Order without any consideration for that – it’s not as if those troopers weren’t killing civilians left and right -, but Finn, of all people, should have shown more empathy towards the other troopers, and the writers should have played up the moral implications more. That scene with that stormtrooper with the energy staff (or whatever that weapon was) could have been used for that, instead of just providing a boss for the inevitable videogame adaptation.
That was one thing I was a little uncomfortable with, like I love how Rey is quite bloodthirsty and absolutely ready to murder dudes, but it doesn’t feel that light-sided, especially when we started off the movie with a stormtrooper who refuses to kill civilians*. How many proto-Finns died in this movie?
*And also Finn is super ready to murder other stormtroopers. Like maybe that one guy always cut in line in the cafeteria, but there’s just no hesitation
Ren felt conflicted because of his lingering attachment to his father; therefore, by killing his father he would stamp out that internal conflict once and for all.
I’m not sure about that; I do think the narrative gave Han’s death just as much importance as Ren himself did. The whole arc – from Ren talking to Vader’s helmet to his moment of hesitation in the bridge – was framed as a counterpoint to Vader’s own arc, where he killed anyone mercilessly but still couldn’t bring himself to kill his own son.
It’s good to know I wasn’t the only one bothered by that, though. Maybe that will reach the writers somehow and they’ll improve on that front for the next movies?
…What? I can hope, can’t I? :-P
“And I’m wondering: why isn’t THIS the moment everyone – the characters, the audience, the narrative itself – considers to be Ren’s irrevocable turn to evil?”
Because this is the same dumbass franchise that considers a giant galactic murdering douchenozzle “redeemed” for saving his own fucking son from getting tortured to death.
Star Wars is a supremely stupid franchise by default and is the very definition of “mindless” entertainment. It’s very entertaining if you just disregard everything except cool laser guns and swords.
So much this.
Yeah, this is probably the more relevant point!
Yes, well, “mindless” entertainment can – and has been – used to describe pretty much any YA work, but Farla and Act still tackle them as serious works of art. :-P Seriously, though: I know the franchise has always been basically a simplistic tale of Good vs. Evil in a space fantasy setting, but the movie brought up those issues with Finn’s character arc, it’s only fair I judge it on those grounds.
You know, the ending of Vader’s story arc wouldn’t have bothered me if they just hadn’t shown his spirit fully at peace, joined to the Force. I know works of fiction tend to portray an idealised version of reality, but come on, full redemption should not be that easy!
Funnily enough, the Star Wars EU sometimes stumbles into seriously awesome and thoughtful entertainment. Like, there’s a book called Traitor that is pretty much my favorite piece of Star Wars media ever. It’s worth a read.
I did really like Zahn’s “Heir to the Empire” trilogy, but the rest of the EU works I read or watched ranged from “Meh” to “Urgh” (it had some pretty good games, though. I loved Dark Forces!).
I don’t know that book. What is it about? Can you summarise the plot?
Zahn is one of the better authors in the Star Wars EU, to be sure, and yessss, pretty much the entire Kyle Katarn series of games were splendid.
Traitor is basically what you get when someone writes Dante’s Inferno in a Star Wars setting. The main character is Jacen Solo – the proto-Kylo Ren. Unlike most Star Wars media, this book actually challenges the commonly held assumptions of what it means to be on the dark vs. light side, etc.
…That sounds awesome! So who is Jacen in that scenario – Dante?
(Also, sudden moment of nostalgia here: back when I stopped reading the EU novels – which was shortly before the whole Yuuzhan Vong [sp?] nonsense -, Jacen and Jaina were still little kids.)
Haha, yeah, Traitor is one of the Vong books. Jacen is Dante.
One of the biggest tragedies, to me, is that George Lucas still had full creative rights to Star Wars when the Vong books were written. About halfway through, the writers did start trying to explore the assumptions/philosophies of the Star Wars franchise and make it not just a simple tale of good vs. evil. Traitor was basically the first real step forward in that direction. Then came the mandate to make Jacen have a straightforward fall to the Dark Side in the next series. Boring.
Ah, Lucas. You know why it saddens me so much that the prequels weren’t good movies? It’s not because they besmirch the “Star Wars” franchise or anything of the sort – I mean, sure, I didn’t like that Anakin Skywalker was basically an emo teenager, but that won’t affect my enjoyment of Vader in the original trilogy, you know? No, they sadden me because I see the story Lucas was going for, and it’s a good story! A political regimen rife with corruption and internal strife being manipulated from within by a charismatic demagogue who goes on to institute a fascistic system, an order of mystical warrior-monks whose own rules ensured they were out-of-touch both with the people they seek to protect and their very humanity, all of that mirrored in the tragic downfall of someone who had the potential to truly revolutionise the world? That’s great stuff! BUT Lucas is a terrible writer who refused to accept any input at all on his work, so what we have is basically a huge pile of wasted potential – with a cool action scene or two along the way.
So… is the movie worth watching, overall?
Aside from the fact that it’s kind of ripping off the plot of A New Hope, it’s not bad. Very pretty. Badass characters. Cool ships. Nothing terribly offensive. No slave bikini. No pod racing.
I really liked the reveal of Chewbacca being a Sith all along.
I knew it all along, of course.
It’s a fun action movie with some great characters, but overall, like Postguestive says, it’s pretty much just mindless entertainment. However, even leaving aside my personal preferences (I really don’t like how they made the new situation the fault of the original heroes, for instance), it does have some serious structural flaws – a lot of important plot points aren’t explained fully (or at all) in the movie, they’re left for the sequels and tie-in works, instead.
I really enjoyed it, I saw it twice in the theater and I really liked the new kids (Rey, Finn, Poe) as well as the callbacks* to the old movies. The sins of the previous movies (un-say-able dialog, gratuitous critters, mysterious lack of women) are largely avoided. Brienne was criminally underused, though.
*The callbacks are heavy so YMMV but to me it was pretty clearly the filmmakers perhaps playing things *too* safe in order to get the trust of fans back. If they remake ESB for the next one I’ll be out there bitching with the rest of them.
The /tallying/ of atrocities in Star Wars has always been pretty off (as mentioned, this is the franchise where one good deed absolved Darth Vader of the murder and torture of dozens of people and billions by proxy and let his ghost join the good guys) but narratively the scene on the bridge was Kylo Ren’s Prodigal Son moment.
Nothing was paid for, realistically he would go on trial at the Space Hague for Star Warcrimes, but that was his chance to just *stop* and come home. And he didn’t, even with Han standing right in front of him. The failure of that choice is what makes it a pivotal scene, not the kill count.
(But it’s good to bring up, because holy shit you murdered 30 people/were involved in the destruction of a planet with 4 moons and all of its orbiting spacecraft. Dude. DUDE.)
The failure of that choice is what makes it a pivotal scene,[…]
True, but why did the narrative frame THAT choice as the pivotal scene? Sure, it’s emotionally and dramatically more powerful (at least on paper), but in a movie with Finn’s character arc, it felt off to have the death of a single character (even if it was Han Solo) framed as the “Fuck you, Kylo Ren, there’s no turning back for you, you have to die!!!” moment.
It seems like this is a central moral question of the original trilogy. Obi-Wan believes Anakin Skywalker is beyond redemption and must be killed or the Empire wins. So does Yoda. So does… basically everyone. He kills people in person. He kills people, and helps the Empire kill people, en masse. He kills Luke’s family just because. He routinely engages in torture. This is a bad, bad guy, who is powerful in the Force, who serves the Emperor, who is the literal worst. And there’s no turning back from the kind of slaughter Darth Vader has engaged in, right? Once you have fallen to the Dark Side, it will forever dominate your destiny. Even Anakin himself believes it: Luke does not understand the power of the Dark Side. He *must* obey his master.
So a Jedi and a Sith fight, and one dies, as always. So the Emperor sets his potential apprentice against his current apprentice, and the potential apprentice kills the current apprentice, and is turned to the Dark Side himself. Right? Because there’s no other choice, no other way out. That’s the power of the Dark Side.
Except Luke says no to that. He turns off his lightsaber, throws it away. He acknowledges Anakin as his father, as like him, as worth saving, as able to be saved. Anakin has done horrible, awful things, but *he can stop*. He can do a good thing. He can rise up and kill his master, not as a Sith engaging in the typical Sith power struggle, but as a father defending his son, as a slave overthrowing the master (like his daughter before him). He can die, not without the blood of countless innocents on his hands, not “redeemed” in some kind of “oh well now you did one good thing and it somehow cancels out or undoes everything terrible you did,” but redeemed in the sense of bought out of slavery: of being able to do good (and to stop doing evil) and having proved it. (He was always able, but until he knew he was able, he wasn’t able. Because until Luke, everything he’s ever been told, by the old Jedi, by Yoda in particular, by Sidious for certain, is that there is no not-being-evil once you’ve fallen to the Dark Side.)
And the prequel trilogy only reinforces that message. It’s not being mad at the Council that is Anakin’s turning point. It’s not slaughtering an entire tribe of Sand People down to the children. It’s not breaking the Jedi Code by refusing to turn away from his attachment to Padme. It’s not killing all the children the Jedi are raising to be warriors after taking them from their families. (I find the First Order’s method of making Stormtrooper fascinating….) It’s not even, actually, being responsible for Padme’s death or fighting Obi-Wan. The turning point for Anakin is *when he believes he’s turned*. When *he* believes he’s fallen, and there’s no going back, this is totally irrevocable, unforgivable, a complete commitment to evil and the Dark Side which will never allow him to choose to do good rather than evil ever again: that’s when he’s fallen.
And that’s why, in the Force Awakens, the turning point for Ben Organa is not killing (or believing he killed while having been present at the killing of) his fellow students at the new academy. It’s not hanging out with Snoke and being groomed by him for his entire childhood. It’s not going with Snoke and putting on his Darth Vader cosplay and going around force-choking people and throwing lightsaber-assisted temper tantrums when things go wrong. It’s not casually ordering the death of an entire settlement to no actual purpose. It’s not standing by and letting entire systems be destroyed by the Starkiller. Because through all that, he still considers a return to the Light Side a possibility–a possibility he does not desire and finds irritating, but he knows that if he went home, Uncle Chewie and Uncle Luke and Mom and Dad’s reactions would be on the order of “You scared us to death! Don’t ever do that again!” (and possibly war crimes trials, but the point is, a welcome back to the prodigal son).
So killing Han is a narratively important turning point in Ben’s arc because *to him* it’s the moral event horizon. His dad can no longer welcome him back home; his mother won’t, can’t, forgive him for this. (I don’t know if she would or could but the important thing is what he believes.) *This* is his no-takebacks turn to the Dark Side. *Now* everyone on the side of the Light (and everyone in the audience who follows typical Hollywood logic and maybe didn’t understand the “no really, ANYONE can turn back from evil just by stopping doing evil” message from the previous movies) must finally accept that there is no hope for him anymore. And will stop bugging him about it. Jeez, he bets no one treated *Darth Vader* like he was one heartfelt family reunion away from throwing away his life’s work as a Sith and helping overthrow the Empire. What does he have to do to get taken seriously around here–kill his father?! Fine! (And the thing he doesn’t get is it is precisely because he’s being taken seriously–precisely because of what lessons the heroes of the original trilogy learned from dealing with Darth Vader–that he’s not being given up on. As long as there’s hope, there’s Light.)
That’s my understanding of that moment, anyway. And I think having Kylo Ren casually order the slaughter of the village really helps, if the point is to drive home that moral message from the original series: “Oh,” says Joe Typical Audience member, “he’s killing entire settlements out of anger, like Darth Vader. So he’s a bad guy, except probably he’ll face off against a member of his family and have a Heel-Face Turn / Redemption Equals Death moment.” (Joe Typical Audience Member thinks in TV Tropes.) And then the movie builds up to Kylo Ren facing his father, and Joe is like, “This is it!!!” but actually, psych, apparently you can be given the choice between good and evil by your family and double-down on evil. “That bastard killed Han Solo! His own father!” Joe thinks. “He really IS beyond redemption.” Except if the message is supposed to be, “no, REALLY, literally ANYone can stop doing evil, at any time, if they choose to do so,” then… he really isn’t. Because that refusal of hope, that withholding of compassion, that condition put on unconditional love, *that* is what empowers the Dark Side. (Well, actually continuing to want to be evil also helps. But if Ben ever does decide he wants to change, despair is the power of the Dark Side.) Only when there isn’t hope is there no light. After all… only Sith deal in absolutes.
[Vader] can die, not without the blood of countless innocents on his hands, not “redeemed” in some kind of “oh well now you did one good thing and it somehow cancels out or undoes everything terrible you did,”[…]
See, showing his spirit happy and at peace in the setting’s equivalent of Paradise kind of implies exactly that, though.
But really, like I said, I can understand Kylo Ren being warped enough to give that much importance to killing Han Solo while casually slaughtering the faceless masses. But why does the movie’s narrative also buy into that view? It’s too early to talk about what a potential redemption for him would look like, but if it does happen, will it acknowledge his many crimes, or only those that directly affect the protagonists (such as killing Han Solo and slaughtering the Jedi apprentices)?
After all… only Sith deal in absolutes.
Isn’t that an absolute in itself, though? :-)
See, showing his spirit happy and at peace in the setting’s equivalent of Paradise kind of implies exactly that, though.
I don’t think I would consider Force-ghostitude to be the setting’s equivalent of Paradise. Certainly I would be inclined to agree with you if he showed up after death looking like young, pre-fall Anakin Skywalker, but showing up in the outfit that defined his brutal doing-evil years, the outdated-tech life support with a chest panel apparently designed to be accessible to others, that offered no protection against his master’s lightning attacks, that he specifically rejected in his dying moments? I don’t think Anakin Skywalker has forgotten, or forgiven himself for, his time as Darth Vader (any more than he rejected his past as Anakin Skywalker when he was known as Darth Vader). I mean, he’s at peace in that he now is no longer doing evil, he knows he died doing a good thing, and the Emperor has been overthrown, and he’s not being explicitly made to Suffer For His Sins by the Force or anything, but I don’t think that implies that the evil he has done is interred with his bones or whatever.
“But really, like I said, I can understand Kylo Ren being warped enough to give that much importance to killing Han Solo while casually slaughtering the faceless masses. But why does the movie’s narrative also buy into that view?”
Probably because that moment is the most important not only to Kylo Ren, but also to Han Solo (for obvious reasons) and possibly to Leia and Chewie and Luke and so on as well. And because I think “the moment where Ben Organa becomes fully committed to the Dark Side and believes it is now impossible for him to waver and return to the Light” is an important moment, even though the ethical system that is leading him to believe that is screwy. But I think it’s useful, if the answer to the question “When is a character completely past saving, totally unable to ever choose to do good ever again?” is supposed to be “Never,” to have the arc we see of Ben mimic Anakin’s in the original trilogy of “wow, super bad guy, doing super bad, killing individuals, killing villages, killing worlds, ah! but will he be so callous in the face of someone who loves him and believes he can be saved??”–if only people who turn back at that point and never kill their family members can be redeemed, that would be implying that murdering dozens or billions of faceless nameless people is acceptable while kinslaying is the ultimate evil. Only by showing the redemption of someone who is both a mass murderer and someone whose reaction to a family member holding out the olive branch is to stab him in the chest can the answer to “Who can turn away from evil and begin to do good?” actually be “Anyone who chooses to.”
if it does happen, will it acknowledge his many crimes, or only those that directly affect the protagonists (such as killing Han Solo and slaughtering the Jedi apprentices)?
Here is where I’m going to go back to cynical movie-watcher mode and say “Yeah it’s probably going to do the typical thing and completely gloss over anybody who doesn’t have a name.” :| But you’re absolutely right that it should not. (I think to some extent that’s already subverted in the scene where he orders the slaughter itself, though, in the focus on Finn’s hesitation. It’s not like refusing to fire his blaster did anyone any good–there were dozens of other Stormtroopers perfectly willing and able to carry out the order. He could’ve easily fired and missed repeatedly, seemed to have taken part for the records but not killed anybody, if that was his concern. But it wasn’t even framed as a heroic refusal as such–just a horrified inability to shoot, after seeing the reality of battle for the first time. Because killing people in cold blood, even people you don’t know, is a thing which people normally have an instinctive revulsion to, because it’s Wrong. –Not that that’s near good enough if they do end up glossing over it, though…)
Isn’t that an absolute in itself, though?
Well, I’m a Sith. I mean, uh–
That’s one of my favorite lines to giggle at though, because Yoda delivers it with no apparent irony. Like, I’m pretty sure we’re not meant to take it as evidence that Yoda is a Sith. Same goes for that speech about fear leading to the Dark Side that he gives Anakin (you know, the kid who’s been taken from his home and his family and his friends by the man who won him off his previous master in a pod race who is now facing a council full of people who go by Master and are deciding his fate) while the Council is trying to decide whether they’re more afraid of Anakin’s potential if he’s trained or untrained. Fear leads to the Dark Side, guys. You’re all Dark Side now. (Also, you should be afraid of being afraid.) (Also, there is so try.)
I just got excited to be able to deliver that line in a context where it kind of actually makes sense. ;-)
Certainly I would be inclined to agree with you if he showed up after death looking like young, pre-fall Anakin Skywalker,[…]
So you’re saying we should ignore the Special Editions DVDs? Fair enough. :-P
Seriously, though, even in the original version his spirit showed up smiling and wearing a robe exactly like Obi-Wan’s, not in the remains of Vader’s armour. This wasn’t a moment like Dracula’s in Bram Stoker’s novel, where for a moment Dracula smiles after being killed because his human soul is finally freed from its captivity by a demonic entity, it was a straight-up full redemption.
Only by showing the redemption of someone who is both a mass murderer and someone whose reaction to a family member holding out the olive branch is to stab him in the chest can the answer to “Who can turn away from evil and begin to do good?” actually be “Anyone who chooses to.”
We’re talking about different moments in the story, though. You’re referring to Kylo Ren’s (possible) redemption, I’m referring to his actual downfall. Whether he will be redeemed or not at some point in the future does not change the fact that the filmmakers purposely decided to make the point of (apparent) no return when he kills his own father, not when he slaughters dozens of people.
That’s one of my favorite lines to giggle at though, because Yoda delivers it with no apparent irony.
Obi-Wan. :-) But yeah, like I said above, Lucas’ second trilogy is full of wasted potential thanks to his poor writing skills. Such a shame!
(It may have been a while since I’ve seen the movies, particularly the original trilogy. I have a really vivid memory of Luke seeing Anakin’s Force ghost in Darth Vader armor at the award ceremony / celebration-of-victory but that was when I last saw the movie which was uhhhh… I should rewatch them, probably. Showing up in Tatooine clothing / apparently the prequel trilogy decided desert clothes is what all Jedi wear so Jedi robes does imply that he’s at peace in the afterlife which, I mean, at least part of the whole cycle of violence the Emperor was encouraging was the need for those who have wronged you and yours to suffer, and personally I also believe that a crucial component in the “there’s no making up for or undoing past evil, only choosing in the present (and resolving into the future) to Do Good rather than Do Evil” has to be a rejection of the idea that enough suffering by the evildoer-seeking-redemption can somehow balance the scales either. But it’s certainly less convincing re: How heavily does the weight of Anakin’s sins rest on his shoulders in the Blue Hologram-like Afterlife? than Vader armor would’ve been.)
I’m only referring to that moment in terms of Ben’s possible redemption because that’s the only way it makes sense in a good way. If Ben Organa is never redeemed, then the movie’s framing of Han Solo’s death as this big dramatic narrative turning point while the Jakku massacre was only meaningful to Finn would imply that killing your family when they’re offering you a way back from the Dark Side is the utterly unforgivable sin, and that casually engaging in or aiding and abetting the slaughter of billions is fine so long as you don’t cross that final line, which is stupid and indefensible under the ethics and values of the culture I’ve grown up in anyway.
That doesn’t mean they won’t go ahead and imply that. I only have so much trust in Hollywood, you know? But I think it does make sense that the movie’s narrative turning point for Ben Organa is the one that he, and his creepy Sith groomer/mentor/master, and his dad whom he killed, and probably most of the resistance, recognize as the important narrative turning point for him. (And all the more so if it is making the point about what you can come back from.) It’s not that killing his father was objectively so much worse than ordering the deaths of the people on Jakku or being responsible for (if he is responsible for) the deaths of Luke’s students. If there is no such thing as a moral point of no return, then killing Han can’t be it. But it is significant to his arc as a character* that he considers it to be the moral point of no return. (And kind of revealing that he doesn’t consider mass murder to be one, I definitely agree there.)
*Let’s assume that they plan for him to have one and it’s not just “he wants to be bad, but he’s angsty and throws temper tantrums; then he commits to being bad by killing his dad and gets to finish his training, so now he actually is scary and evil. …And now he is dead.”
I suppose it’s true that Ren’s story arc (probably) isn’t finished yet. We’ll wait and see.
And if you’d like to rewatch the original ending to “Return of the Jedi”, it’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBMqJ9mQKpI
Well, in the movie, Finn’s arc starts with him not killing the people at Jakku, but then he’s pretty self-serving throughout the rest of the movie: he just wants to escape the New Order at first, then, later, he just wants to protect his friends
I think it comes down to Star Wars just having such terrible, terrible morality. Regular fantasy already has this problem and Star Wars insists on having this happen with the scale jumping from “small country” to “entire universe”.
If we ignore what’s said, what sets Finn off is another stormtrooper dying – his failure to shoot people after that makes most sense viewed in the light of him having a general breakdown. All his behavior between that and rescuing Rey is just a matter of wanting out. He’ll kill people along the way because this isn’t an issue of morality, it’s fear for his own life.
(It also helps if we pretend the child soldier thing isn’t true and he’s like some guy who joined up for the reliable salary and then wanted to desert because oh my god war is scary I don’t wanna die omg we’re torturing people this is terrifying and then by the end of the movie comes to care about others and realize the First Order is actually wrong and fighting them is a cause actually worthy risking your life over.)
So, the narrative builds up Kylo Ren’s decisive moment – his final step into the Dark Side – to be when he kills Han Solo, his own father. Fair enough; a child killing one of their own parents is a classic in fiction. But at the beginning of the movie, after Kylo Ren has captured Poe Dameron and is taking him prisoner aboard his ship, Captain Phasma asks him what to do about the villagers, and he just tells her to slaughter them all. And I’m wondering: why isn’t THIS the moment everyone – the characters, the audience, the narrative itself – considers to be Ren’s irrevocable turn to evil?
Killing people for practical or semi-practical reasons is something that you can deal with by changing the situation so that killing people isn’t the best option. Killing his dad is him saying that he’ll force himself to do terrible stuff even when he doesn’t want to. You can’t offer him any reason to not be evil because his goal in life is just “be super evil”. Unfortunately this isn’t an internal conflict that makes any sense.
The real moral failing is his parents trying to get him back, to me. Okay, I know he’s their son and they love him, but Leia especially is a leader and she can’t get lots of innocent people killed over a personal thing like this. Han wasn’t just risking his own life trying to get Ren back, he was also gambling with all the people Ren will go on to kill (and all the children Ren will keep taking from their families to be child soldiers) if he fails, while being totally okay murdering lots of far more innocent people because they weren’t his kids.
…you know, it occurs to me now that just about everything would make more sense if there weren’t stormtroopers everywhere. Ren can slaughter people just fine without backup, and the super weapon is pretty unneeded when the plot is about a macguffin-type chase. He’s still pretty scary as a terrorist thorn in the side of a functioning society, because he personally is just about unstoppable. If Ren is running around with just a small group of buddies, then trying to talk him down is far more acceptable.
Killing people for practical or semi-practical reasons is something that you can deal with by changing the situation so that killing people isn’t the best option. […] You can’t offer him any reason to not be evil because his goal in life is just “be super evil”.
True, but he made no effort to change the situation on Jakku, on the contrary. And sure, his goal is to be “super evil”, but other than nominal importance, does his killing of Han Solo constitute any more evidence of that goal than ordering the execution of that village in Jakku?
Unfortunately this isn’t an internal conflict that makes any sense.
Also true. Maybe if we had something about his background other than “he feels Han Solo was a terrible father” and “there’s too much Vader in him”…
The real moral failing is his parents trying to get him back, to me.
I don’t know, I don’t think we should classify “attempting to help someone redeem themselves” as a moral failing, even though it was done mostly out of personal interest (their love for their son). Besides, while this doesn’t excuse Kylo Ren in any way, he’s pretty much a puppet in the hands of Snoke. Ren is a powerful weapon of the New Order, but Snoke is the real threat; he’s the one who’s managed to basically recreate the Empire.
Although your proposal seems far more interesting, and also makes much more logical sense! It’s a shame they basically wanted to redo “A New Hope”.
If we ignore what’s said, what sets Finn off is another stormtrooper dying […] All his behavior between that and rescuing Rey is just a matter of wanting out. He’ll kill people along the way because this isn’t an issue of morality, it’s fear for his own life.
Quite true, but I think it’s an understandable motivation, and I feel the character remains sympathetic (mostly; it still felt off that he showed absolutely no negative emotion at all at killing his former comrades, especially since they were all “raised” together – I can’t believe even a cult-like military culture would provide no opportunities for interpersonal relationships).
And sure, his goal is to be “super evil”, but other than nominal importance, does his killing of Han Solo constitute any more evidence of that goal than ordering the execution of that village in Jakku?
There were valid reasons to wipe out the village! The next time someone has something they want, that person will have to ask not only, “Am I personally willing to die for going against them?’ but also, “Am I okay with everyone else being killed for my choice?”
Now, this can also just make people resist you more, so one can debate if it’s actually a good idea. But if Nazis thought it worked, he can too.
Killing his dad removes one person who was pulling his punches and makes it way more likely people won’t pull their punches. It’s a bad move he does only for the evulz.
The magnitude of one act is obviously larger, and I personally was happy Han was dead because now the movie would stop pausing on shots with him to be all LOOK WE GOT HAN SOLO DID YOU NOTICE, but it required a much stronger commitment to evil for evil’s sake to do.
I don’t know, I don’t think we should classify “attempting to help someone redeem themselves” as a moral failing, even though it was done mostly out of personal interest
It’s not so much the desire as the cost. It’s like with Sakura – if you know someone’s currently killing people and you let them live in the hopes they might be redeemed later, you’ve said their life is worth more than everyone else’s.
Quite true, but I think it’s an understandable motivation, and I feel the character remains sympathetic
Certainly. He was in a horrible situation. Killing people because they’re standing between you and not getting killed isn’t heroic but it doesn’t make you a monster either.
There were valid reasons to wipe out the village! […]
Killing his dad […] [is] a bad move he does only for the evulz.
The magnitude of one act is obviously larger, […] but [killing Han] required a much stronger commitment to evil for evil’s sake to do.
Hmmm… Yeah, ok, I see your point. I mean, I personally consider the utter lack of empathy required for the first act to make it morally worse even if we disregarded the number of people involved, but I see your point.
It’s not so much the desire as the cost. It’s like with Sakura – if you know someone’s currently killing people and you let them live in the hopes they might be redeemed later, you’ve said their life is worth more than everyone else’s.
It would depend on just how certain it is they will kill later, though. Well, okay, let’s step away from the theoreticals and focus on Kylo Ren’s specific case: it’s safe to say he was going to keep on killing unless he was somehow stopped. But Leia was absolutely certain he would be redeemed – not could, would -, and in that case, wouldn’t it be immoral to not offer him the opportunity?
Basically, I see her belief in Ren as a judgement error, not a moral failing.
(And in Sakura’s case specifically, I think it’s important to note she was actually innocent – she didn’t choose to be turned into a time bomb, after all.)
Killing people because they’re standing between you and not getting killed isn’t heroic but it doesn’t make you a monster either.
Side note: I wish more works of fiction acknowledged that.
Hmmm… Yeah, ok, I see your point. I mean, I personally consider the utter lack of empathy required for the first act to make it morally worse even if we disregarded the number of people involved, but I see your point.
Well, what I’m thinking is, you can teach people empathy. It’s really hard, but it’s possible. And you can work around a lack of empathy by making consequences. I don’t know of any way you can fix “has empathy and understands consequences, but deliberately does bad stuff that makes them unhappy too”. So while generally, I’d agree that no empathy is the worst stage, Ren’s completely alien “dilemma” manages to produce negative numbers.
But Leia was absolutely certain he would be redeemed – not could, would -, and in that case, wouldn’t it be immoral to not offer him the opportunity?
Well, imagine breaking into (Insert Evil Dictator Here)’s room to offer him a chance at redemption, knowing that if he says no it’ll be by shouting for the guards and now you’ll be dead and unable to prevent the next wave of killing. Now it’s sort of your fault too – you had a way of saving all those people and you were willing to risk it to save one more.
It’d be different if it was Leia and Han risking their lives trying to grab him when he was injured rather than leaving him to die or something like that. And it bugs me especially when Leia is in charge of so much – were there other chances they had of stopping this before now but she couldn’t bring herself to do it because it could kill her son?
I don’t know of any way you can fix “has empathy and understands consequences, but deliberately does bad stuff that makes them unhappy too”.
Ah, ok, I see your point.
Yeah, Ren’s conflict does feel hollow, doesn’t it? The problem is that we don’t know why he wants to follow the Dark Side so much, or how “brainwashed” he was by Snoke (not literally brainwashed as is often seen in fiction; I’m thinking of the kind of brainwashing done by a charismatic cult leader). We didn’t have any of those with Vader, either, but he wasn’t nearly as conflicted as Ren seems to be, and his feelings for Luke (which didn’t stop him from trying to freeze Luke in carbonite and handing him over to the Emperor) were only plot-relevant in “Return of the Jedi”.
And it bugs me especially when Leia is in charge of so much […]
Hmmm… True. As a leader, she should be expected to set her own feelings aside and think of the greater good, difficult as that might be.
…you know, it occurs to me now that just about everything would make more sense if there weren’t stormtroopers everywhere.
As a bonus, not having stormtroopers gets us as far away as possible from the prequels’ clone nonsense (who thought having the good guys use a slave army was a good idea?).